Spawned from the pen of underground comic artist R. Crumb—but disowned (and even murdered in the funny pages) by his creator after this unauthorized film version—Fritz the Cat is a disarmingly cute animated feline who's also visibly horny and deliriously high. This 1972 Ralph Bakshi adaptation is a very odd mish-mash of innocuous-looking kids-style animation married to softcore erotica, horrific violence, and hippy-era drug use. The film has attained a cult status, and its place in animation history is assured, if only because of its boundary-crashing imagery—wild humping and bloodletting and doobie-toking in a cartoon! Without Fritz, would we have such adult cartoons as South Park? Still, watching Fritz the Cat today is a chore—you'll derive a few laughs at the outrageousness of some its scenes, but most of the time your brow will be furrowed while characters endlessly spout obscure early-70s counterculture meanderings.

The film follows NYU student Fritz as he engages in an orgy with various animals, flees from a couple of insanely bumbling cops (characterized by pigs, naturally), burns his apartment building to the ground, and hangs out with black crows in Harlem. After a series of revelations, Fritz finds his calling as a crusader against the world's ills. As you follow Fritz's adventures, you can't help but notice that the film has a strange contradiction at its heart: While the film and Fritz take a firm stance against racial injustice, much of the imagery is racial stereotypes.

Considering the recent standards set by such films as Toy Story, Fantasia 2000, and The Iron Giant, and even older Disney fare, Fritz's choppy, nonfluid animation style is bound to disappoint. This is a movie that you must watch with some perspective—it's a labor of love produced by bong-sucking hippies. I'm just kidding about that "bong-sucking hippies" remark. Mostly. But it is a labor of love.

MGM presents Fritz the Cat in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The transfer surprised me, particularly considering the film's low budget and age—it's nearly 30 years old, after all. The colors are spot-on and intentionally chaotic, bringing across Fritz's hand-painted origins. Sometimes the film's age is evident: I noticed a few scratches and small particles, but nothing major. I can't imagine this film looking any better.

The original Dolby Digital 2.0 mix is mediocre. One thing that age has affected is this soundtrack's fidelity, which is a shame because some of the quickly mumbled dialog is very difficult to make out. Other times, shouted dialog comes across as screechy or tinny.

Only a trailer. Some films cry out for special-edition treatment: This is one of them. Imagine a documentary about R. Crumb's appalled reaction to the movie. Or a commentary track to decipher some of the murkier product-of-their-times passages. Or a featurette about the years-long process of creating the animation. Sigh.

Fine video, fair audio, and bleak extras equal a DVD offering of Fritz the Cat that will be of interest to serious animation fans and counterculturists—including, of course, suckers of bongs.